Gaon Introduces New Certification System For Albums, Downloads, And Streaming

On April 20, the Korea Music Content Industry Association announced that Gaon Chart will be implementing a new certification system for album and song sales.

Gaon Certification will be applied to all works released and licensed in Korea from January 1 of this year and will be based off of data from Gaon Chart. The new certifications covers album sales, downloads, and streaming.

The album certification applies to albums sales six weeks after the album’s release. Surpassing 250,000 album sales means the album can be certified as “Platinum” while surpassing 1 million album sales gives an album a “Million” certification.

The certification for downloads is similar with 2.5 million downloads certifying a song as “Platinum” and 10 million downloads giving a song “Diamond” certification.

Likewise, certification for streaming counts 100 million instances of streaming for “Platinum” certification while 1 billion instances of streaming gains a “Billion” certification.

The secretary general for the Korea Music Content Industry Association explained, “Many countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan have been implementing an album sales certification system. However, Korea has not and we received many questions and requests from Gaon Chart regarding this. We decided to implement a certification based on Gaon Chart’s data as such a system is necessary for a country with active music consumption.”

What are your thoughts on this new certification system?

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